Looking for a way to make tablet sized Display of energy usage based on ISY, SEP and Variable input

[LFMc]

Hi All,

 

I have been running the ISY SEP energy module and have set up a great semi-automatic energy monitoring and management program with the ISY that has saved me a lot of $$ in the last year. It has been a great project getting to know my energy usage and how to manage it to significantly reduce my bills. 

 

But, I am missing one feature that I would like to try and setup, but before I waste resources doing it myself (if I could), I thought I would ask for input from you much more experienced programmers and ISY users about which direction I should take to accomplish this goal, if it is possible.

 

What I want to do is to take an older tablet sized device (Maybe an Android tablet or a RPi with color display) and turn it into an Energy Monitor Display. I am tired of having to take my android phone out of my pocket and fire up the UD Ajax UI to check on my usage and then having to flip back to the variables I'm using to see other energy usage components I am monitoring. Plus, being a public household display, it would allow others to be more involved. 

 

So, features I would like to program the Energy Monitoring Display:

1. Larger color display (tablet size) with large text on the display that can be read from across the room.

2. Ability to show select ISY Dashboard "My Electricity" items of my choosing. Such as Today's usage, Yesterday's usage, MTD usage, Instantaneous Usage. 

3. Ability to show select variables on the display. 

4. Possibly a button or two that triggers some ISY programs I have written.

5. Stretch option:  a continuous chart showing daily or hourly usage for last 30 days or x number of hours.  

 

My starting point is of course my ISY Pro (4.x firmware) with SEP energy module and ISY portal. I have a PC that uses a batch file to scrape the data I need from the SEP rest interface and plugs it into some ISY variables. 

 

I've reviewed a couple of canned apps such as Mobilinc and Agave and they don't seem to support what I am trying to do, but please let me know if you think they do or could do it. I think Agave might come close if they added an SEP monitoring component and would read variables and dashboard items. I have also looked at several energy management system's displays, but they all seem to be attached to their monitoring hardware and are very pricey. 

 

So, any thoughts or questions? 

 

Thanks ahead of time for your input.

 

--Leon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Teken]

Hi All,

 

I have been running the ISY SEP energy module and have set up a great semi-automatic energy monitoring and management program with the ISY that has saved me a lot of $$ in the last year. It has been a great project getting to know my energy usage and how to manage it to significantly reduce my bills. 

 

But, I am missing one feature that I would like to try and setup, but before I waste resources doing it myself (if I could), I thought I would ask for input from you much more experienced programmers and ISY users about which direction I should take to accomplish this goal, if it is possible.

 

What I want to do is to take an older tablet sized device (Maybe an Android tablet or a RPi with color display) and turn it into an Energy Monitor Display. I am tired of having to take my android phone out of my pocket and fire up the UD Ajax UI to check on my usage and then having to flip back to the variables I'm using to see other energy usage components I am monitoring. Plus, being a public household display, it would allow others to be more involved. 

 

So, features I would like to program the Energy Monitoring Display:

1. Larger color display (tablet size) with large text on the display that can be read from across the room.

2. Ability to show select ISY Dashboard "My Electricity" items of my choosing. Such as Today's usage, Yesterday's usage, MTD usage, Instantaneous Usage. 

3. Ability to show select variables on the display. 

4. Possibly a button or two that triggers some ISY programs I have written.

5. Stretch option:  a continuous chart showing daily or hourly usage for last 30 days or x number of hours.  

 

My starting point is of course my ISY Pro (4.x firmware) with SEP energy module and ISY portal. I have a PC that uses a batch file to scrape the data I need from the SEP rest interface and plugs it into some ISY variables. 

 

I've reviewed a couple of canned apps such as Mobilinc and Agave and they don't seem to support what I am trying to do, but please let me know if you think they do or could do it. I think Agave might come close if they added an SEP monitoring component and would read variables and dashboard items. I have also looked at several energy management system's displays, but they all seem to be attached to their monitoring hardware and are very pricey. 

 

So, any thoughts or questions? 

 

Thanks ahead of time for your input.

 

--Leon

 

Hello Leon,

 

I believe if you invest the time and resources to create a custom HAD interface this may offer some of what you're looking for. The only caveat is the HAD interface will not display graphs and charts. Having said this a group of us worked on creating native graphs and charts held in the ISY Series Controller. While other adventures members like Michael Waremen threw their hat and input to help use the Google charts in the same basic premise..

 

All of this can be found in the UDI WiKi . . .

 

You may inquire with Paul B. if he has a running *How To* for the HAD interface as I know he worked on this for his TSTAT's etc.

[LFMc]

Thanks Teken. 

 

I must admit I haven't even looked at HAD a second time since I first fired up my ISY a few years ago. I didn't realize it's depth. This clearly sounds like an option with some significant investment of programming time. If anyone has done something similar to this with HAD, an example of your program would be great to follow. 

 

I did just download and run the HAD admin interface on my android phone. It seems to be broken as there are no graphics on the HAD admin display, just text. Anyone know why this is? I have changed phones since I first opened HAD, so maybe it is something to do with my device? (Moto X pure android)

 

--Leon 

[LFMc]

You may inquire with Paul B. if he has a running *How To* for the HAD interface as I know he worked on this for his TSTAT's etc.

 

And thanks for this also. I will see if I can PM him. 

[Teken]

And thanks for this also. I will see if I can PM him. 

 

Hello Leon,

 

Just to be clear its Paul Bates, in case there are more than one Paul B's in the forum. Also, Benoit is the creator of the HAD interface which UDI has incorporated into the ISY Series Controller. I believe the WiKi offers a quick glimpse into the custom HAD process. Please do let us know how you get on and create a *How To* for others to follow.

 

This was a project I had slated many years ago but lost steam due to its investment in time and resources. 

[paulbates]

Hi Leon-

 

There are a couple of links to refer you to

1. Primarily the wiki - and the 4 links at the bottom, that's most of it
2. A long thread, but worth skimming 
3. The link in the first post from (2.) doesn't go where it should, look here

Some notes / notes from the journey

• Its a fairly light and tablet / touch friendly facility... but at the end of the day its web and web pages. I went with scrolling vs trying to bend the way it was coded to fit more on a page.. it can be done, but I didn't do that.
• It initially took some reading and patience to get the hang of it, and then design my functions in to the template pages and make my own tabs, below is an older pic of what I did as one status tab for my HVAC systems.
• To modify it, you have to manually edit pages with an editor, I used notepad++ and Komodo edit
• I set up a "dev" environment following the directions, on an external system, perfected the code, but ultimately copy the completed pages back to the ISY to serve it up. "Developing" and copying to the ISY to test gets old. There are a few tweaks to make to the directory of remote servers to get it to login to the ISY
• If you use the ISY to serve the pages, they can be accessed through as links through the ISY portal. I have a "no ports open" policy for my house, so this was a good compromise. Also maintaining one more server environment was not on my list of things to do.
• If you go to ISY v5 FW eventually, there currently is not an expression for nodes in HAD, however, you can copy node values to variables with an ISY program, and and variables can be displayed. I've used it on android but its been a few years.

 

Paul

[LFMc]

Hi Leon-

 

There are a couple of links to refer you to

1. Primarily the wiki - and the 4 links at the bottom, that's most of it
2. A long thread, but worth skimming 
3. The link in the first post from (2.) doesn't go where it should, look here

Some notes / notes from the journey

• Its a fairly light and tablet / touch friendly facility... but at the end of the day its web and web pages. I went with scrolling vs trying to bend the way it was coded to fit more on a page.. it can be done, but I didn't do that.
• It initially took some reading and patience to get the hang of it, and then design my functions in to the template pages and make my own tabs, below is an older pic of what I did as one status tab for my HVAC systems.
• To modify it, you have to manually edit pages with an editor, I used notepad++ and Komodo edit
• I set up a "dev" environment following the directions, on an external system, perfected the code, but ultimately copy the completed pages back to the ISY to serve it up. "Developing" and copying to the ISY to test gets old. There are a few tweaks to make to the directory of remote servers to get it to login to the ISY
• If you use the ISY to serve the pages, they can be accessed through as links through the ISY portal. I have a "no ports open" policy for my house, so this was a good compromise. Also maintaining one more server environment was not on my list of things to do.
• If you go to ISY v5 FW eventually, there currently is not an expression for nodes in HAD, however, you can copy node values to variables with an ISY program, and and variables can be displayed. I've used it on android but its been a few years.

Venstar.PNG

 

Paul

Thanks Paul. This will take some time to absorb. 

 

--Leon

[Scottmichaelj]

Check out Mobilinc HD Energy monitoring feature.

 

Edit: Added link

http://mobilinc.com/features/energy/

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Leon,

 

Please note that MobiLinc HD already supports that just in case you consider using iPads.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[LFMc]

Please note that MobiLinc HD already supports that just in case you consider using iPads.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Scott & Michel,

 

Thanks for the suggestion. At first glance, it appears the Mobilinc HD + Energy Module might work. But here are the challenges I don't know the answer to or makes it less realistic to use:

 

1. Cost: I can swallow hard and pay $50 for Mobilinc HD. But you have to also pay $30/year for Mobilinc connect and then you have to subscribe to the Energy Module. They want $100/year.  So at least $130 per year ($180 just the first year).

2. I have jumped to the Android camp long ago, but have an old IPad 2. It could possibly run Mobilinc HD's current version, but if they upgrade it, I am probably toast. iPad 2 will not go past IOS9 from what I understand. So that would mean buying another iPad in my future. 

3. I can't discern from their advertising if it will allow me to program the display of variables on the same screen as their pretty graphs and there is no try before buy of this version that I can find. They have large single item display windows. I really would like a user programmed summary page that shows more large print details and probably less huge graphs. 

4. I can't verify that it works with just the native SEP energy monitoring on the ISY. I do not want to add any other third party hardware such as Bruetech

 

This might be the best out of the box solution, but in short I think it is a very high annual price to pay, even if my items #2-4 became non issues. 

 

--Leon

[bpwwer]

I think I've done something similar to what you are looking. However, it is quite complex.  

 

In addition to the ISY, I have PC based home automation software running.  I find that the PC based software makes interfacing different system much easier and generally the packages have much better facilities for generating output and accepting input from graphical devices.

 

My primary display/touch screen is an old all-in-one PC (still running Windows XP no less). It provides a nice large screen that's easily visible so that the important info can be seen just by glancing at it.  By default, I have it showing inside/outside temperature (and some other weather related data), energy use for hour/day/month/year, A graphical bar showing current energy use (colored green/yellow/red to make it obvious when we're using a lot), and time/day. Since it is a touch screen, it can be used to show more detailed information for weather, energy use, security, etc.

 

The home automation software does interface with the ISY so has access to all device states, programs, variables, etc. It also interfaces to my alarm panel, my power monitor (I'm using a Brultech device), my local weather station device, etc. 

 

I believe that most PC based HA software packages can interface with the ISY today.  To what extent will depend on the package.  I'm most familiar with HomeSeer and Elve since I've created ISY interfaces for both.  Elve (from CodeCore Technologies) is no longer maintained but is still available.

 

There is a learning curve and cost to any PC based HA package, but there is also a lot of flexibility to make it do exactly what you want.

[builderb]

For the graphing side of things, I'm using RRDTool to create custom graphs and a pi-hosted web server to push them to the interwebz.

[MWareman]

Sorry to tag onto this thread - it's related to the subject at hand....

 

Does anyone know the substitution variables for energy related data from a ISY-994i ZS IR/PRO when paired to a smart meter?

 

There is nothing on the substitution wiki page on this... https://wiki.universal-devices.com/index.php?title=ISY-994i_Series:EMail_and_Networking_Substitution_Variables

 

This is necessary to have the ISY generate a .csv file for the graphing solution I previously posted... (many months ago now..)

 

Michael.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Michael,

 

I will take a look and post back.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Michael,

 

Here you go:

/**

* Metering:

**

"umeter".

"status.check"

"status.lowbat"

"status.tampered"

"status.powerfail"

"status.powerqual"

"status.leak"

"status.disconnect"

"status.ok"

"usage.currsum"

//tiers

"usage.t1sum"

"usage.t2sum"

"usage.t3sum"

"usage.t4sum"

"usage.t5sum"

"usage.t6sum"

"usage.t7sum"

"usage.inst" (instantaneous demand)

"period.max"

"usage.today"

"usage.yesterday"

"usage.currdelta"

//this billing cycle

"usage.cycle"

 

/**

* Demand Response

*/

 

 

"udr".

"event.criticality"

"event.duration"

"event.cooloffset"

"event.heatoffset"

"event.coolsp"

"event.heatsp"

"event.loadadj"

"event.dutycycle"

"event.status"

"event.stopreason"

 

/**

* Message

*/

"umsg".

"event.reqconf"

"event.importance"

"event.status"

 

/**

* Price

*/

 

"uprice".

"event.tier"

"event.price"

"event.duration"

"event.status"

//this cycle

"event.cycle"

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[LFMc]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for all the input. There are a lot of options out there involving all levels of labor or cost it seems. It seems I can get most of the info I want to display from my current emeter logs and batch inquiries. Doing that I think it might be fairly easy to build a Google Sheets or Excel dashboard display of the summary of that info that refreshes every minute or so. I will not have active buttons running on the same page, but I could run Agave behind it to add that feature. This should be able to run on about any standard tablet device I have sitting around. 

 

It should be a fun project and the side benefit is my wife is a spreadsheet pro, so I can get her involved in the project. (-;

 

If anyone is interested in the result, I'll be glad to update the thread. 

 

--Leon

[Teken]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for all the input. There are a lot of options out there involving all levels of labor or cost it seems. It seems I can get most of the info I want to display from my current emeter logs and batch inquiries. Doing that I think it might be fairly easy to build a Google Sheets or Excel dashboard display of the summary of that info that refreshes every minute or so. I will not have active buttons running on the same page, but I could run Agave behind it to add that feature. This should be able to run on about any standard tablet device I have sitting around. 

 

It should be a fun project and the side benefit is my wife is a spreadsheet pro, so I can get her involved in the project. (-;

 

If anyone is interested in the result, I'll be glad to update the thread. 

 

--Leon

 

Hello Leon,

 

Eager to see how this all unfolds and the final outcome. I would appreciate if you could document the journey as a *How To* for others to follow.

[MWareman]

Hi Michael,

 

Here you go:

/**

* Metering:

**

"umeter".

"status.check"

"status.lowbat"

"status.tampered"

"status.powerfail"

"status.powerqual"

"status.leak"

"status.disconnect"

"status.ok"

"usage.currsum"

//tiers

"usage.t1sum"

"usage.t2sum"

"usage.t3sum"

"usage.t4sum"

"usage.t5sum"

"usage.t6sum"

"usage.t7sum"

"usage.inst" (instantaneous demand)

"period.max"

"usage.today"

"usage.yesterday"

"usage.currdelta"

//this billing cycle

"usage.cycle"

 

/**

* Demand Response

*/

 

 

"udr".

"event.criticality"

"event.duration"

"event.cooloffset"

"event.heatoffset"

"event.coolsp"

"event.heatsp"

"event.loadadj"

"event.dutycycle"

"event.status"

"event.stopreason"

 

/**

* Message

*/

"umsg".

"event.reqconf"

"event.importance"

"event.status"

 

/**

* Price

*/

 

"uprice".

"event.tier"

"event.price"

"event.duration"

"event.status"

//this cycle

"event.cycle"

 

With kind regards,

Michel

Thanks Michel. I'll verify that it works and add it to the wiki page on substitutions....

 

Michael.

[MWareman]

Michel,

 

I tried putting ${status.check} and ${usage.inst} in an email notification - and they did not get substituted. I wonder if something got mal-formatted in the forum post...

 

Michael.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Michael,

 

For more meters, I don't think status works for anything except tamper detect. Do you see All OK on the dashboard?

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[MWareman]

Actually, no it doesn't (on UDAjax - I'll check Dashboard when I get access to a real computer again).

 

However, the ${usage.inst} substitution is not working either....

[LFMc]

Actually, no it doesn't (on UDAjax - I'll check Dashboard when I get access to a real computer again).

 

However, the ${usage.inst} substitution is not working either....

Hi Michael,  Would you please move your topic to another post? It is really getting confusing here. 

Thanks,

--Leon

[Michel Kohanim]

Michael, moved the topic here:

http://forum.universal-devices.com/topic/22489-substitution-variables-for-smart-meter/ (please look at the examples).

 

with kind regards,

Michel

[LFMc]

Ok, I finally decided on how to do the dashboard. So I combined a few ideas and added some of my own. I decided to use a Raspberry Pi and code the dashboard in Node-Red. It has been extremely simple and easy to do, even for me. The biggest issue I had was just getting Node-Red installed and working correctly. I am in the early prototype phase and wanted to post some working results and get any feed back on the product or even if anyone else is interested or maybe I am just talking to myself on this project. I have about $40 bucks for a Pi and case, other than that, everything (except the ISY Zigbee option) is free. 

 

For those that are not aware, Node-red is an engine running on a Pi, but the output is on any browser you have on the local network. Also all the programming is done on any browser in the local network.

 

Here is the current resulting dashboard. It needs some further refinement and additions. Also the gauges change colors as they pass preset points.

 

 

Here is the under laying flow: 

 

Feedback is welcome as is interest in the final product. 

 

PS, can anyone tell me how to get the attached files to show up in the post body so they are larger? 

[Teken]

Leon,

 

That is super awesome I would love if you could document a *How To* to cover the problems and solutions in Node Red. Based on your other thread it seems there were a few people who ran into similar issues. Ideally, if someone could bundle an image that anyone could download and place on a Micro SD card to insert into a RPi that would be quite fantastic. 

 

I'm finding I have less time to learn and tinker in these sub hobbies.

 

What is the goal for this new found capability for you? To have a always on tablet for a *At a glance*?